


Cold Child

by Phileas



Series: French cuisine [3]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Police Violence, Taxidermy, dapper taxidermist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-08
Updated: 2013-03-08
Packaged: 2017-12-04 03:32:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/706027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phileas/pseuds/Phileas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It would be difficult to describe what exactly was going on between Jehan and Parnasse. They were more than friends, more than lovers, they were the continuation of the other and a week apart was inconceivable. Sometimes they would kiss, and touch. Their caresses were delicate. Fingers brushing the arc of a naked back, a warm hand on a soft belly or the roundness of a shoulder. Parnasse was hidden in Jehan's smiles and Jehan in Parnasse's skilful hands. They had made a nest for themselves in each-other's ribcage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold Child

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I'm not a native English speaker and I'm sorry for every possible mistake I made. 
> 
> The prompt this time was: “At least one of your main character should be a child (not a child in canon) and dinosaurs must be involved. The text must include the following word: memory, fuchsia, scramble, corrupt, mesmerizing, protrude and hell-bent. Good luck!”

 

The Prouvaire were from Toulouse and this is where the young Jean spent the first years of his childhood. He doesn't remember much about it now. His memories of the south are fuzzy. What he remembers is being eight, and told that they were going to move to Paris during the summer because of his mother's job.  
He always was small child. Fragile looking for a boy, with small wrists and freckles on his skin. He was very timid and discrete, more often playing by himself than not, sitting under a big tree during recess with a book or telling himself stories. 

The other boy was from the 14th arrondissement, Montparnasse, to be precise. He lived with his mother in an old building in front of the cemetery. Other children had started to call him Montparnasse when his Ukrainian name proved too difficult for them to pronounce. His mother had moved from Kiev to Paris long before he was born.  
The name had stuck and most people didn't bother calling him anything else.  
He was ten the first time he saw Jean Prouvaire. 

 

Maybe because he was also a loner, he started to gravitate around the small boy. Jean gave him dinosaur-shaped biscuits one afternoon, and the next Saturday they were playing under the shades cast by the trees in the alley of the Montparnasse cemetery. 

There was two years where Montparnasse and Jean would have to make do with only their Wednesday afternoons and week-ends to see each-other because Montparnasse was now in middle school at the collège Stéphane Mallarmé. Jean made him swear to not forget him and Montparnasse promised.  
Jean was dispatched in the _6eme Verte_ class on his first Monday at Mallarmé and Montparnasse waved at him with a smile, from the window of his classroom. Recess was once again spent sitting under a tree and they would walk home, their heads bent together in some sort of secret collusion. 

When Jean turned twelve he started calling him Parnasse, because he was a clever little thing full of romanticism and poetry. Parnasse... The anti-romantic poetic movement. Art didn't have to mean anything, didn't have to be utile or full of virtues. Art was Art because Art was beauty.  
He liked it. And Arthur Rimbaud was a bonus. (That little shithead of a poet.)  
When Jean turned twelve, Parnass started calling him Jehan. Because it suited him and he had read it in a book about knights and middle-age.  
Jehan was delighted and refused to be called anything else. 

This is also when Parnasse started smoking and Jehan stopped getting his hair cut.  
They were a little bit in love. 

 

Parnasse never went to High School as he was now sixteen and chose instead to integrate a CAP Taxidermy. It suited him and Jehan would love to come to his house on school days after class and watch him learn techniques and animal morphology by heart.  
When Jehan uncut hair started to grow unto an awkward mess, Parnasse gave him a black beanie to hide it. Jehan decorated the hat with fabric flowers and was seldom seen without it on his head for almost two years.  
Jehan left Mallarmé for the Lycée André Chénier, where it was possible for him to take a musical option. At Chénier, he grew into himself. 

He played the flute five hours every week in class (plus the weekly 2 hours of conservatoire on Tuesday evenings), learned Greek, Latin and Italian, and was, at last, able to make a small braid out of his hair. On Sunday mornings, when one or the other had slept over, Parnass would braid more complicated patterns and small plaits along his blonde locks while Jehan watched the early morning cartoons on the telly.  
The older boy would wait for him everyday (except Tuesdays) at the high school gates and they would walk around for a while. Parnasse would give him little things, a ribbon, a flower or a candy, and Jehan would buy some _pains au lait_ and chocolate bars to put inside, at the nearest bakery.  
They would hold hands and trade secrets that they would invent on the spot because there was no secrets between them anymore. 

 

After three years at Chénier, Jehan passed his baccalauréat and got a mention.  
They both were in the high school yard when the results got pined on the board. Jehan was holding Parnasse's hand so hard, the other man was a tad worried he would break it.  
“- Do you want me to go and see?  
\- No! Yes... I don't know, Parnasse.” The blond looked at him nervously and Parnasse smiled.  
“- I'm going then.”

Jehan watched him make his way through the sea of exultant or crying teenagers and search for Jehan's name on the lists. His heart leaped in his throat when the man scanned the lists without pausing and turned toward him with a stern face. Parnasse made his way back to him and slammed his hands on Jehan's shoulders.  
“- Jehan, mon chat... “  
Jehan was incapable of anything, neither moving or speaking.  
“- Jehan, you got a _mention bien_!” and Parnasse's face broke into a gigantic smile as the small young man closed his eyes and hugged him with relief. 

Parnasse was so proud he made Jehan blush for several days with his incessant praises. He also got him a beautiful fountain pen and a new notebook. Jehan had to hide his pink pink face under his hands to cover his overjoyed smile. 

 

This summer, Jehan had his last and incredibly unforeseen growth spurt. He went from 1m63 to 1m72 in a month and a half, with great muscle pain and bone aches. Parnasse would mass his legs and arms with a mocking smile which disappeared the day Jehan stood to grab a glass and was able to look him in the eyes without looking up.  
Parnasse slammed his own hand against his cheek and his face took a faintly distressed expression. 

“- You're an adult now, darling bird.  
\- Well...” Jehan shrugged, pleased. “I'm eighteen now. I can drink, vote, drive and have sex with whomever I wish.  
\- Too bad being an adult does not come with a fashion sense.”

 Jehan glared at him, standing tall in his (slightly too small now) fuchsia jeans. Parnasse started to laugh and took the boy against him. Jehan let out a smile and put his arms around the other man.  
“- I though... Maybe I would cut my hair again.” He muttered against Parnasse's neck.  
“- Do you want me to do it?  
\- Would you?  
\- Anything for you, bird.”

They chopped his hair the following day and Parnasse left him with a slightly imperfect undercut and a mass of, somewhat curling, flowing hair on top. Jehan smiled at him in the mirror and Parnasse put a paper crown they had made earlier this years on his head.  
“- You're the king of birds now. And you're beautiful.”

Jehan kissed him delicately on the corner of his lips.  
Parnasse kept the blond braid for himself. He later made a lovely if slightly alarming composition with the carefully kept braid and some dead birds. Jehan loved it. 

 

August was also marked by Parnasse's first garde à vue at the police station. Jehan knew that Parnasse was more than less involved with some dangerous crowd, but he never asked and Parnasse never mentioned it. The garde à vue lasted 24h and Jehan was there when he came out. Parnasse frowned slightly.  
“- What are you doing here?  
\- Eponine told me... I thought you would like the company. Are they going to charge you with anything?”

Parnasse looked at him sombrely and rubbed Jehan's back with a sigh.  
“- No. They asked a lot of questions, but they have no proof that I was involved in whatever they think I was involved in.”

Jehan blinked and smile slowly. He didn't ask if Montparnasse was indeed involved and instead he took his hand.  
“- Come on... There is still time to grab something to eat from the girl down the street. She makes the best cheese-filled potatoes.”

It would not be the last time Parnasse would be detained in police quarters, but Jehan would always be there to wait for him.  
They talked about it only once, and Jehan agreed to never ask anything about Parnasse nightly occupations. It was safer for both of them. 

 

In September, Jehan went to university. 

 

* * * 

 

It would be difficult to describe what exactly was going on between Jehan and Parnasse. They were more than friends, more than lovers, they were the continuation of the other and a week apart was inconceivable. Sometimes they would kiss, and touch. Their caresses were delicate. Fingers brushing the arc of a naked back, a warm hand on a soft belly or the roundness of a shoulder. Parnasse was hidden in Jehan's smiles and Jehan in Parnasse's skilful hands. They had made a nest for themselves in each-other's ribcage. 

They would see other people, sometimes. In his first year, Jehan got a girlfriend. Her name was Agathe. She was nice and Montparnasse liked her enough. It worked for a while but she broke it off after seven month. Montparnasse was too much for her, she said. Always there, all that Jehan would talk of, sometimes. 

Parnasse frowned at the news and made a sorry face. Jehan shrugged it off. It wouldn't have worked out anyway, he said. Don't worry, he said. 

 

Quite soon after that, Jehan joined a student association called _Les Amis de L'ABC_. Parnasse never got what they were supposedly doing exactly. The president, a young man called something Enjolras was also president of the UNEF student association of the university, which, really, should have tipped him off. They were two types of UNEF students. The lazy ones, smoking pot and thinking themselves revolutionaries, and the others. The true engaged people, the true revolutionaries, fighting for student rights. The same that started May 68. 

He was formally introduced to the whole bunch when Jehan called him at work. He was bent over a dead parrot when the phone started ringing with Jehan's ringtone. The poet's voice was wavering and asked him to come at a given address as soon as he could possibly. Parnasse panicked slightly and closed his shop in a hurry.

 

When he knocked at the door, Eponine was the one to open. She sighed in relief and let him in. The large flat was overcrowded by a dozen students, and in the middle of them, his Jehan with a spilt lip and scratched hands. He pushed unceremoniously a young man to access Jehan faster.  
“- Jehan...” He frowned and sat by him.  
“- Parnasse, I think my wrists are broken...” said the poet with a white voice. Parnasse's eyes went wide. He looked around and finally noticed that every single person in the room was in some kind of equally beat up state. What was this??? A sort of Fight club association? 

“- Bird, are you in pain?  
\- I gave him pain medication...” said one of the students. He looked shaken and pale.

“- Why is he not at the hospital?” he asked angrily. A tall kid with no hair answered that Jehan refused to go until they called Montparnasse. They had to hold the phone to Jehan's ears because he couldn't take it with his hands. Parnasse turned toward Jehan and made him stand, holding on his elbow.  
  
“- Come on now bird... Let's go to the hospital.” He looked around. “One of you is coming with me and is going to tell me what happened. And you better have a good explanation.”

 

The explanation was bad. 

They were out protesting when it degenerated into a riot and the police attacked the crowd with batons and tear gas. Jehan was trying to pull someone called Feuilly out of the metaphorical fire when a policeman slammed down his baton on Jehan's wrists.  
Parnasse dragged his hands along his face and glared some more at the young man sitting by his side in the waiting room of the ER. Jehan had been taken away half an hour ago. He sighed.  
“- I have no care in the world for the well being of your little troupe, but Jehan does. This is why you're not on the ground right now. Do you understand this?”

The young man nodded.  
  
“- I cannot and won't tell him what he can do and what he can't do with his life. But I swear if anything serious happens to him when he's with you, all of you... Broken wrists will be the slightest of your worries.”

Parnasse looked at him some more to make sure the message was received and turned his eyes toward the doors. The ten next minutes were spent in silence and Jehan finally reappeared. Parnasse shot from his chair and strode toward him.  
“- Jehan!” The poet smiled a little.  
“- I am fine, Parnasse.  
\- Your wrists are broken! This is not fine.  
\- The doctor said it'll heal.” Jehan was looking at him with soft eyes but did not reach to touch him, both his hands covered in plasters. 

Parnasse took him in his arms, minding the wrists, and hold him tight.  
“- I was worried.” 

Jehan kissed his neck and sighed pleasantly.  
“- You'll have to write my poems for a while.” 

Parnasse smiled and detached himself from Jehan. He looked at the other student and beckoned him closer.  
“- What's you name?  
\- Courfeyrac.  
\- Well, Courfeyrac, you can now bring Jehan back to your merry band of rioters, I left a dead parrot on my workbench and he's not going to empty himself, now, is he?” He asked agreeably and kissed Jehan's cheek. “I'll see you later tonight, broken bird?”

Jehan nodded, kissed him back and smiled. “Put it in your pocket, inside of your jacket, to keep walking on the road.” Parnasse rolled his eyes at the song lyrics and waved goodbye to both students. 

Once Parnasse was out of the waiting room, Courfeyrac asked with a very small voice.  
“- A dead parrot?  
\- He's a taxidermist.” 

Courfeyrac's eyes widened. “Could he really hurt me?”  
Jehan looked at him, then at his wrists and answered distractedly:  
“- Parnasse? Oh yes. Indubitably.” He then smiled at Courfeyrac. “But don't worry. I wont' let him.”

 

Later, when Jehan was about to leave the group to go home to Parnasse, Courfeyrac asked:  
“- Is he your boyfriend?”

Jehan looked down to Courfeyrac who was tying his shoelaces for him and smiled.  
“- No.  
\- Your best friend?  
\- Not exactly. That would be you.”

Courfeyrac smiled brightly and finished his knot.  
“- So... What is he, to you?  
\- He's the one who find lost boys under the trees.”

He let Courfeyrac put his coat on his shoulders and close it with agile fingers.  
“- He is everything to me.” He smiled slightly and flushed at the other man confused face.  
“- Well...” Said Courfeyrac. “If anything, he is a really well dressed taxidermist.”

Jehan, blood laced with pain medication, dissolved into laughter. 

 

* * * 

“- I'm not too fond of your revolutionary group, Jehan... They all look a bit too cheerful. Except that Grantaire chap. Only reasonable one in the whole basket. What... Are you laughing at me, bird? What did I say?”

* * *

 

“- So, what about Courfeyrac?  
\- What about him?  
\- He likes you.” 

Jehan looked at him from where he was reading in the corner of his workshop, music playing softly in the background.  
“- I know.  
\- And don't you like him too?” Jehan shrugged with a blush.  
“- I guess. He's... nice.”

This made Montparnasse laugh.  
“- Nice. You think everyone is nice.” Jehan huffed.  
“- I don't think you are.  
\- Good.”

Jehan looked at him from above his book and half closed his eyes. He sighed and resumed his reading.  
“- It's different with you, Parnasse. You, I love.”

Montparnasse answered with nothing but a smile. 

 

* * * 

 

“- Are we going to consider Molotov cocktails?”  


Everyone in Enjolras's flat turned to Jehan, eyes wide. He stared them down, unflinching. His hands were free at last, but still not entirely healed and he was still careful with them.  
“- The police has no care for us. They are corrupted by a right winged government that promises them violence. They're here to, and I quote “ _break some students_ ”. They fight with gas and batons, I've even heard tales of rubber balls fired from guns that caused broken ribs and noses. How much longer are we going to stay on the other side of the fence with peaceful protests and only our bare hands to bear the bruises and milk to sooth our eyes? There are pave-stones on the ground, waiting to be picked like so much flowers. Let's indeed give them violence.”

Jehan could see Bahorel nodding, and Joly with his hand on his mouth, not in shock but in weary consideration. He was only voicing aloud what everyone had been thinking for the past month. The CRS were increasingly vicious toward the protesters and not one of them had escaped unbloodied. 

“- Jehan...  
 - I got my wrists broken, Enjolras. Feuilly has three broken ribs, Bahorel busted two of his phalanges and Grantaire... “ Everyone turned to the black haired man who's nose had been broken during the protest. He still had two painful looking black eyes to remember it by. Grantaire winced under the attention, but Jehan was not done. “And you Enjolras. You got gas in your eyes. So did Combeferre and Bossuet. I saw it. If Joly had not been there with his bottles of milk... Remember how we laughed at him for taking them? I weep when I think of us, going back home to lick our wounds, while _they_ go home with cheers and gloating words on their tongues. Well done, they say, that'll teach them.” Jehan was standing now, hands vibrating with unspent rage. “ We fight for what is right, for freedom and equality. We fight because this is the only thing we can do and we have so much to lose.” He pointed to Feuilly whose eyes opened wide in surprise. “Feuilly is not a student. He takes time from his work to come here and to protest with us. Because he hungers for the same thing as we all do. And while we suffer injuries and we risk to lose our jobs or places at universities, _they_ get paid to fight. The government gives them monetary compensation for 'injuries in the line of duty'... Do you understand what I'm trying to convey? I will not stand passively anymore. I can't.”

The whole group stared at Jehan in silence. They knew the poet was as dedicated as them all, and ready to put himself in the line of fire, but never before had he talked with such vehemence. Grantaire took a good hard look at Jehan and stood. He slowly took the poet's hand and gently pulled him in a vacant room.  
“- Is he back?” 

Jehan let out a shaking sigh and brought his hands to his face before nodding.  
“- They kept him 48h, R. And they beat him up with a phone book. One of his eyes is still swollen...” His voice was shaking with anger and sorrow. “They tried to make him talk because they had no proves but you know him...” 

Grantaire bit his lip. Yes, he knew Montparnasse. He had often been invited to lunch or diner at the flat Jehan shared with the dapper taxidermist, and he liked the man. But he knew how stubborn and uncooperative he could be. When Montparnasse had decided to stay silent, he was hell-bent on it.  
“- They beat him up... And he can't sue, of course! How could he?”

Grantaire put his hand on Jehan's shoulder and the poet took a deep breath. It seemed to ground him and he rubbed at his face with shaking hands.  
“- They think he's involved with the Patron-Minette gang.  
 - Is he?”

Jehan stared at Grantaire, unblinking, and Grantaire lowered his eyes, contrite. He only looked up when Jehan started again with an infinite sadness.  
“- He wants me to find a new flat in case the police decides to get him one night... He says he doesn't want me to get involved and... I get it. I mean... I understand, but...  
 - Hey... Jehan... Jehan look at me. You can stay with me and Courfeyrac. Since Marius moved out we could use a third flatmate, you know...”

Jehan nodded and sat on what seemed to be Enjolra's bed.  
“- I know... Thank you.”

Grantaire sat by his side and put his large hand on Jehan's neck. He squeezed softly.  
“- But?  
 - But what if the police comes indeed? What if I'm not here and I don't know he's gone? I'm so afraid for him, R... What if he goes to prison? I need him so much and I know, I know he needs me too and...  
 - Exactly, and this is why he is trying to make you move out. How do you think he'd react if you were the one under the phone book? Mmh?”

Jehan sighed once more and slumped against Grantaire, his eyes closed.  
“- Sometimes, I dream that he and I embrace each-other so strongly that we melt into one being, for the rest of eternity. And it's soft and warm and peaceful, and we'd never need for anything.”

Grantaire put his arm around Jehan and kissed his hair.  
“- This is a most wonderful dream.” 

 

* * *

 

For his first morning in his new flat, Courfeyrac made him scrambled eggs with bell peppers and mushroom, and a cup strong tea with a bright orange gerbera in a small glass of water.  
“- Slept well?”

Jehan shrugged and stroke the petals with careful fingers.  
“- I'm still not used to the room.” He smiled at Courfeyrac. “But it'll come, I'm sure.”

Courfeyrac smiled too and gestured to the window. It was a most perfect Sunday and the air was pleasantly warm.  
“- Do you want to go out this afternoon? I think Bossuet and Feuilly wanted to check out the new exhibition at the Jardin des Plantes and I've heard Joly talk about some free concert tonight in the quays.  
 - Oh, sure! That sounds great.” He smiled and Courfeyrac beamed back at him. 

The eggs were delicious and Jehan pined the gerbera to his lapel for the rest of the day. 

 

* * * 

Of course, nothing could have prevented Jehan to spend most of his free time in the back of Parnasse's shop. Not that Parnasse was complaining. He knew that he had made the best choice for everyone when he asked Jehan to move out, but he missed the other man like a limb. When Jehan showed up that Wednesday afternoon, Parnasse simply bolted toward him. 

“- _Mon très aimé_.” Parnasse engulfed Jehan in his arms and they breathed against each-other's skin.  
“- I miss you.” said the poet in a soft, muffled voice. Parnasse kissed the soft curve of his neck all the way to his ear and Jehan shivered, pressing himself against Parnasse, who rested his open mouth against the poet's throat, his teeth grazing the skin in a wolfish kiss.  
“- I would eat you, bird, if it would keep you inside me forever.” 

Jehan let out a soft noise of approbation.  
“- _Je t'aime.  
_ \- _Moi aussi, je t'aime_.”

They stayed tangled in each-other for a while.

 

Later, Jehan would stare at Parnasse's hands, agile and fast, mesmerizing, while he sculpted a bloc of white matter into a life-like dog. He would even let Jehan chose the glass eyes for the animal and stroke the pelt, ready to be once again in a dog shape.  
“- Whose dog was it?  
 - An old lady's. She lives in the neighbourhood, maybe you've seen her. She's always wearing a sun hat with white plastic daisies on it.”

Jehan uttered a sad little sound.  
“- Oh, yes... A little lady with a protruding hump on her back? She's so lovely, and she seemed to really love her dog.”

Parnasse nodded and Jehan sighed.  
“- That's so sad. I should get her some flowers.  
 - I'm sure she'll appreciate it.” Parnasse smiled, as he started to sew the skin on the mannequin. 

 

* * *

 

“- Combeferre... I'm afraid of Montparnasse.  
\- Everyone is afraid of Montparnasse, Courf.”

The silent _“except Jehan_ ” went unsaid. Courfeyrac was wringing his hands in distress and Combeferre sighed.  
“- What is the matter with you?  
 - I'd like to date Jehan.  
 - I know.  
 - You know???  
 - Everyone knows!”

Courfeyrac wailed and raised his arms to the skies.  
“- Oh gods!!! Everyone knows? Even Montparnasse?” He froze. “Even Jehan?  
 - Yes... Even Montparnasse and Jehan.” Combeferre shook his head, appealed at his friend's obliviousness. 

“- What am I going to do? I'll get mugged in a back-alley and left for dead! I'll get stuffed and exposed in the window of his shop!  
 - Why in hell would he do that?  
 - Because I coveted Jehan, and everyone knows that Montparnasse is like a terrible guardian angel with a scalpel in one hand and a knife in the other!”

Grantaire chose this moment to get out of the kitchen with three cup of coffee.  
“- You don't get it, Courf. This is not how they work.  
 - And you know that because..?  
 - Because I have eyes, and I used to hang out with them when they still lived together.”

Combeferre accepted his cup with a nod and Courfeyrac clung to his in desperation. Grantaire sat in the sofa and looked at Courfeyrac with mockery in his eyes.  
“- With Jehan and Montparnasse you have to think out of the norm. Because even if you managed to get Jehan to date you, you will always have to share him with Montparnasse.  
 - A bit like Enjolras and France, if you want.” Added Combeferre, casually. Grantaire frowned and glared at his coffee. 

“- All I'm saying is that Jehan possess enough love to make Spring come early, but that you should not expect him to love you _'more_ ' than he loves Montparnasse. I'm not saying he'll love you less, Courf... But those two? You can't pick only one.”

The three men kept silent for a minute until Courfeyrac asked tentatively.  
“- So... You think I should have a threesome?”

Grantaire frowned and opened his mouth, incredulous, while Combeferre's shoulder shook with silent laughter, his face hidden in his free hand.  
Courfeyrac smiled for the first time this afternoon and down his coffee with mirth. Grantaire tried to kick him in the knee but failed and they changed the subject. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> CAP : it's a apprenticeship diploma, in France.  
> UNEF: It's the Student Union (Union Nationale des Etudiants de France)


End file.
